Renaissance Swordsmanship: The Illustrated Use of Rapiers and Cut-And-Thrust Swords

by John Clements

This is the most thorough work ever about historical swordsmanship. It is both a general reference and an instructional guide for advanced and beginning sword enthusiasts, students of military history and martial artists. Includes rare historical info and 100 original drawings.

Genres: Nonfiction, Martial Arts, Reference, History, Military History, War, Research

152 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1997

Reviews

[Reni]

I am not a practitioner of martial arts, so I read this as an absolute lay person, both from a writer's perspective and simply someone being interested in swordsmanship.

Renaissance Swordsmanship managed to tell me all I had wanted to know for the purpose I picked it up, and furthermore cleared up a lot of misconceptions I had about the weapons explored in detail in this book, of which I had not been previously aware.

All in all I found the book a very useful and enlightening read, accompanied by helpful illustrations. The writing style is not too dense and you quickly learn the most basic terms you need in order to understand the moves and parts of weapon anatomy described in the book. The author does tend to whine a bit from time to time: About renaissance fairs, inaccuracies in movies, about fetishists of eastern asian martial arts, etc, etc. These sections did luckily not disrupt my enjoyment of the book's actual subject matter as they are very brief.

As the other reviewer already mentioned this isn't a new book, so any conclusions the author draws from his own research should be taken with a grain of salt. But that is case even with the newest research and shouldn't surprise or dismay potential readers.

[ye-nya]

really great and informative. the bone the author has to pick with asian martial arts could've been kept in the drafts, but i learned a lot from this as someone who had no prior knowledge of this subject matter

[Ben]

Dated, but with some good information in it still. This mostly stands now as an intersting look at the manner in which the WMA movement first appeared in print. At over a decade old in a field where new discoveries and interpretations are being made every week, a second edition for this book would be a useful update.

[Felix Delong]

Exactly what I've been looking for for getting back to the basics. Very practical.

[Christopher]

The lack of focus hurt this book I think. Either of the subjects, rapier or cut and thrust, could have been treated more fully.